Reply by David Kirtley

Mike, For a skew on a spindle, start with just the lower 1/3rd or so of the blade until you get used to it. Keep the point away from the work. The point will catch badly if you are not careful. You ride on the bevel and then shift a bit to start cutting. All of a sudden, the chips will just spray off the work. You shift your body to steer the tool just like riding a bike. Only move your hands and tool for really delicate cuts. Everything else will be whole body.

Get used to turning to dimension. Start out just roughing out and turning a cylinder. Turn tenons on the ends. Then make grooves on the piece. Then round off the pieces between the grooves. Then you turn hollow portions between the grooves. When you go to part off, it is just a deep groove that goes all the way to the center. That’s it. Beyond that it is just doing things to size until you try hollow forms like bowls and beyond. Don’t worry about those until you can do spindles.